Not only did the Pirate Party win 8.9 percent of the vote, it also got someone into office.

The Pirate Party has expanded its platform from its original push from file sharing and data protection on the internet to include education and citizens’ rights.

However, the result will be a shock for Big Content, which has always seen governments as its puppets. It might be harder for the music and film industry to bring in moves to crucify file sharers and force them to pay for industry mistakes for the last ten years.

Even if one candidate is not that many, it means the mainstream parties are going to have to adopt some of the Pirate Party’s ideas if they want to get votes from its supporters. Hopefully, this will mean that they will stop turning over their legal system to Big Content and force them to act like other businesses.

Top Pirate candidate Andreas Baum told ZDF television that this is all new to his party, and he will get straight to work.

The elections were a drubbing for the Free Democrats, Merkel’s coalition partner. They won only two percent of the vote, far short of the five percent needed to win seats in the regional legislature.

Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats captured only 23.2 percent of the vote, behind the centre-left Social Democrats, who won 28.7 percent.